Welcome to the spot where I rant about my favourite things, my not-so-favourite things, and the things that just rumple my stiltskin, as it were.
This week's feature:
The Bad:
Jack and the Beanstalk. The moral: "If you're poor, steal something from a rich person. Then loot and plunder all his other cool stuff and kill him." Or perhaps the Beanstalk symbolises mankind's knowledge, like some kind of Tower of Babel, and the giant symbolises God. Jack, of course, is Nietzsche, irreverently ripping somebody's religion to shreds for his own personal gain.
The Ugly:
Little Red Riding Hood. I presume that the modern-day version of this story is much more sanitised than the gruesome original, but in case you don't know what the original was, here goes.
Little Red Riding Hood goes to visit her Grandma, but a wolf eats her Grandma up -yes, EATS GRANDMA! CHOMP CHOMP! CHEW CHEW! SCRUNCH! MUNCH! "Mmm, boy-oh-boy, your Grandma sure tastes good! Oo, she's sticking to the roof of my mouth though. Hey! Here's a crunchy bit! Yummy-yum! Mmmm, that bit tasted like salami." Slopsh squelch shred scrontch burrrrrrrp!- and disguises himself as the crone in question.
This cunning guise is extremely effective, and it is only Wolfie's sensitivity about the size of his eyes, his nose and especially his teeth that makes him give the game away. Then a woodcutter comes along and chops open the wolf -yes, PERFORMS OPEN-STOMACH SURGERY WITHOUT ANAESTHETIC! Slice! Hack! HOWWWLLL! Squelch! Splatter! Guts! Blood! Gore! Ripping out intestines!- and in a grisly display that would put any Alien Chest-Burster off its breakfast, drags Grandma from inside the poor wolf, whose suffering is in violation of every code in the RSPCA manifesto.
And this is supposed to send kids into peaceful slumber? Geeze, what kind of parents would read THIS morbid splatter-story their offspring? Mr and Mrs Hannibal Lectur senior?
